Florian's bending rolls

[Florian Eberhard]

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen!

I already have announced in the other bending rolls thread that I am also going to build my own rolls. The first picture below shows my first draft of my own version.
A few hours later, it looked a bit different but was complete then.
I started ordering some of the standard parts. I could of course make them myself but the Idea on this project is to get a tool to work with and not to build a display tool.
A while ago, I finally ordered the frame parts from a laser company which cut them from 15mm thick steel plate. (Some high-grade construction steel which machines nicer than the standard grade)
I still need the gears (I will also order them) and the raw material for the rolls. I am not yet sure if I shall order some material that has been surface hardened and ground or if I shall just use some precision ground stock.

But the project will have to wait until I finished the cochran boiler. Until then its just about getting all the material together.

Cheers Florian

[b.lindsey]

Those frame parts look very nice Florian. That will save a lot of machining time too. On a project like this I agree with you, buy what you can off the shelf. Looking forward to seeing it develop.

Bill

[Florian Eberhard]

Hello

This is it. I have (almost) all the material together for my bending rolls.
And I also attached a little little teaser about what's coming first.

Cheers Florian 

[Florian Eberhard]

Hey there

I actually wanted to continue machining. But I need two screws that I can't get right now to clamp something down on the rotary table. 
Well - I couldn't do anything but switch off the radio and the lights and get back to the desk..!

So instead I'll continue right here:

The two side plates of the bending machine have been machined in different setups.
I used a carbide endmill for most of the work.
I recently discovered that one of the tool supplier at work has got a type of a roughing carbide endmill in his program which is reasonably priced and is very tough (unlike many carbide grades i had known up to now) I only had to use a "standard" hss roughing endmill for one radius where the carbide endmill would have been too small.
The next step was boring the seat for the bearing sleeve.
Some holes were drilled, two tapped and countersunk for holding a shoulder screw (which is going to be the axle for the two connecting gears).
And the next setup shows the last step on that one, finishing the slot for the sliding bearing. You may notice the two 248 blocks (metric versions of the 123 blocks) which are used to get the two side plates exactly identical (with the same angle)
And there they are, shiny and looking even better than in reality.
After all the flat setups, I had to clamp the side-plates in the vise to drill some holes in three faces.
And they have a "weak" point between the two bearing slots. Tahts why i used two big spacers to increase rigidity when machining

Cheers Florian

[Florian Eberhard]

Good Evening

Next up were the bottom and vertical plate that complete the bending machine frame.
The lentgh of this part actually got quite close to the limits of my machine. The side has a length of 284mm and my machine provides a x-travel of 300mm. With the endmill having 12mm in diameter, I had (would have had!) to position the parts quite exactly. Which of course I didn't do good enough at the first take.
I also had to borrow the 500mm caliper from work. (pretty useful to have that possibility  )
I ordered the same plate twice (its cheaper to have cut two of a kind)  and so I had to mill off 15mm on each side.
After machining the outline, two threads had to be drilled on the long side and two on each short side. This setup again got really close to the limit of my machine - at least when using the vise. I had to use my shortest collet chuck to hold the drill and afterwarts the tap
Finally two dowel pins were put into each bearing plate (and the base plate). The holes were drilled after screwing everything together (I guess I couldn't do it precise enough in any other way )

Cheers Florian

[Steamer5]

Looking good Florian!

Cheers Kerrin

[yogi]

Great build Florian! 
Thanks for sharing.

[petertha]

Nice work & very interesting project
- so what did you end up buying for the rolls themselves?
- I've heard that laser cut edges can be locally hardened or otherwise tough on end mills. Did you find that? You mentioned the hogger/toothed EM, was that more to remove bulk material before finishing, or did it have more to do with the laser surface itself?

[Mosey]

Nice work, Florian, what we've come to expect from you.

What is that nice Mill? Your neat setup and clean mill and accessories forced me to go down to the shop and reorganize.   
Mosey

[Florian Eberhard]

- so what did you end up buying for the rolls themselves?
- I've heard that laser cut edges can be locally hardened or otherwise tough on end mills. Did you find that? You mentioned the hogger/toothed EM, was that more to remove bulk material before finishing, or did it have more to do with the laser surface itself?

Hi Peter, Mosey and all the others

I have finally ordered surface hardened rolls after testing the machineability on my equippment and considering it good enough.
I didn't really have any problems with the laser cut edges but I also used a carbide endmill for most of the milling. The toothed endmill was only used for some few spots where I wanted a bigger radius than my carbide endmill would produce (its a 12mm carbide endmill and the roughing endmill has 16mm)
However, if you had to machine a laser cut edge, I would do it like machining castings: Take a deep enough cut so your cutter doesn't rub over the hard spots but cuts through under them.

Mosey, you just made me go back and look if I have never written about my milling machine - and there you got me   I started showing my milling machine in my "introduction" thread. I never completed it though - well - shall I finish it then?
However, this is a combination of a Deckel G1L engraving machine and the high speed milling head that was available for the Deckel FP1. The machine resulting from that is really the best I can imagine considering its capability on one side and its compact size on the other hand. And tooling is cheap since it uses iso40 size - which is very common here in europe (may be even the most common size / type used)


Well - christmas kind of slowed the whole building process down since I had to make one gift by myself (a pneumatic fire piston).
However, I have started again and I took a few pictures to share it with you:
I had to collect some material for the bearing blocks (1st picture)
Since I do not have any motorized saw, I used a small side milling cutter to get the required sizes of raw material.
Four pieces are ready to be drilled and machined on the outside.
Centering a workpiece in the four jaw chuck is quite easy with the method shown in the 4th picture below. After that the gun-metal block was drilled trough and opened up to the required size.
Then they went over to the milling machine, set up on the rotary table and machined into the final shape.

And there we have four bearing blocks finished

So much for now, see you with the next update! 
Florian

[90LX_Notch]

Florian-

Great project, great set-ups and great machining.

-Bob

[Mosey]

No disappointment here. Very nice setup and workmanship! I give up, my shop will never be that tidy.

Yes, definitely show us the mill.
Mosey

[Florian Eberhard]

I give up, my shop will never be that tidy.

That is only a question of the view shown in the pictures. The mess is there too in my shop - Its only that I like to have my machines cleaned up now and then.
And by the way, I think its not about how clean your shop is but how you feel good in it.

Thanks bob! But to be honest, those setups are just something I saw somewhere else and memorized it. Especially the one where I center the workpiece in the four jaw chuck.

Back to the bending rolls:
I forgot a picture about the bearing blocks, I also machined a circular pocket into them where the adjusting screws will go in.
And here (2nd picture) we have cut off pieces to machine the two latches and the two "beam nuts" (How would you call those parts? They will carry the radius adjustment screws)
The two "beam nuts" were rather easy to machine, first setup to drill the holes.
With another setup, the two steps were machined (and deburred on the machine as far as possible)
The two latches are a bit more interesting to machine. After quite some adjusting work on the rotary table, I started with drilling again (notice that the thread in the middle was not yet machined)
After drilling, I machined the shape of the latches.
Then in the second setup, I machined off the material which held the parts in the first setup. I also cut the thread after using the center hole of the thread to position the half finished latches.
And here they are, two latches which almost look like they were cnc-machined

Cheers Florian
ps: I will start a thread about my mill somewhen in the near future. 

[Florian Eberhard]

Good Evening everyone!

This thread is about - er - kind of cannibalism
Well - what im talking about is that I have used two 12.9 grade bolts to make the adjusting screws from. The reason for using them is that they are tempered and therefore will machine with nice surfaces. And I didn't want a poor surface like you often get when threading silver steel.
I first machined the "knob" side and the opposite face to get the required length.
Then I cut the finer thread (the lathe was already set for that pitch) which was a M8x1 for the longer screws and a M10x1 for the shorter ones.
And on the other end, I have machined a standard M10 (x1.5) thread to connect them with the knobs.
The last step was milling to faces on the dividing head.
I suppose it looks "quick and easy" as I am showing it here - but in fact it took me at least 6 hours to complete those spindles!
This is by the way also the point you are getting up to date again - or - almost. Those spindles were finished last sunday evening.

Cheers Florian

[10KPete]

Those screws look really great, Florian! Nicely done. The whole job looks good...
Rolls like that have been on my project list for years. Maybe someday I'll do some. This thread is certainly inspiring!!!

Pete

[Florian Eberhard]

Hey Pete

Thank you! I've had them on my list for quite some time too. But its good that I was "forced" move them form the bucketlist to the "work in progress" list
The next (not really easy) job was machining the rolls. I started with the smaller, adjustable roll to get into machining them. That required the use of the steady rest
Unfortunately I was too busy to take pictures, so here is the already finished roll put on top of the machine. 
And I couldn't wait to do this:
Then I took the longer roll which is going to be the fixed one. That is also the only picture from machining the second roll.
And here is the second one finished on the lathe.
I will need to machine a square on one end and a slot for the key on the other end.
Oh and also in my shop, not everything is going well. I cannot understand how it happened but somehow, I machined the axle journal 0.2mm to small on one end when I was rough machining that diameter. Although I checked the diameter before the last pass.
You can imagine how I was swearing and shouting around  - I mean those rolls have been quite some work and also they were not cheap.

Finally It turned out well because I can just replace a bronze bushing with a self-made version which has the right bore diameter.  I guess I was a bit lucky about that! 

Cheers Florian

[10KPete]

Gee, 0.2mm..... pffftttt!  You can whip out a new bushing in less time than it takes to talk about it!! 

Pete

[Roger B]

These things happen  but the fix is not too much work. I did the same with a crankshaft so one end is 12mm the other is 11.5mm. I can say it is a special feature so I can't install the shaft the wrong way round 

[MJM460]

Hi Florian,

The API compressor spec requires that feature for certain parts.  Looks like you made it right and the drawing was wrong.  Better update the drawing.

Seriously though, thank you for your detailed posts. Beautiful and inspiring work.  Can't wait for you to get back to the Cochrane boiler.  I thought Harris was kidding when he proposed it for a model in the book, but you have made it look more than possible, and have demonstrated amazing skill.  Thank you.

MJM460

[Florian Eberhard]

Hey  - I still someone reading? (I guess so )

You guys didn't hear a lot from me in the last time. Thats because I had to move and organize everything new (the shop is not yet reorganized - that will hopefully happen this fall)
However, I acutally completed my bending rolls a while ago but then the dropbox-disaster happened and I had to reupload pictures not only in this forum (i am not yet finished here) but also in a german forum aswell and that took a lot of time since I like to attach a lot of pictures to my building logs / whatever posts.  Oh and not to forged that I am very busy at work and also enjoying the beautiful wheater that we had here in switzerland for most of the summer.

However, when I was reparing my posts, i was reminded that I didn't even finish here (and also with some other posts further back!  ), so I am right now kind of easing my conscience 

The last thing you saw was machining the rolls on the lathe. After the lathe, one roll got a square machined to one side for the crank and a keyway milled into on the other side for the drive of the other roll.
For this operations, I needed something to support the rolls at the end they were machined and kind of a dividing apparatus on the other end. I came up with what you can see on the first picutre. The roll was clamped in the big vice. Then I clamped my small direct dividing head onto the roll, disengaged it and used another vice to clamp the dividing head. After that, i clamped the smaller vice to the milling table and was ready to machine the rolls.
This worked really well and I could machine the square on the "free" end of the roll without having any vibration problems.
The keways on the two bigger rolls were machined in the vice aswell although I didn't use the dividing head anmyore.
With the rolls all completed, I changed to machining gears. First i bored up the blanks with my bigges mt1 drill. After that, I machined the bore to size using a hss boring bar. A quick check showed that the gears fit the rolls just like they should.
The unneeded stub was then parted off holding the gear with an expanding mandrel.
The almost same procedure was done to the idler gears aswell and finally I had four (almost) finished gears.
I will have to broach a keyway to the driver and the driven gear and press in bronze bushings into the idlers.


Cheers Florian

[Ye-Ole Steam Dude]

Beautiful work, and hope you get settled back in your shop soon.
Thomas

[Florian Eberhard]

Hey Thomas

Thanks!
I am working at getting back into the shop but the good wheather is working against me   

Florian

[Dave Otto]

Hi Florian

Beautiful work as always, its good to see you posting again; I always enjoy seeing your work.



Dave

[zeeprogrammer]

Beautiful work as always, its good to see you posting again; I always enjoy seeing your work.

  Same here.

[Florian Eberhard]

Thanks guys! Not that my work would be that special - its all photoshop  
NO - i am just joking, those pictures are real, I didn't change anything but the size of them.

Back to the bending rolls:
I replaced the earlier mentioned bushing which was now too big for the roll with the mishap. I used gunmetal and I'd say it turned out pretty well.
I also shortened some standard bushings for the idler gears (two per gear) and will press-fit them.
Then the next subject. I wanted to use shoulder screws for the sheet pressing screws but found out that they are made with very big tolerances - the pressing screw bridge levers were acutally blocked at a certain position and not on another one.
So i grabbed some drill rod and machined two screws.
The same with the idler axle. I also wanted to use a shoulder screw as axles. But after tightening, the shoulder screws were not square to the side frame and this resulted in blocked gears. So I also made two axles from drill rod, almost like a shoulder screw. Whats different is that - since I only had 12mm drill rod (nothing bigger) I will need to make a retainer disc. But that not too bad, that shouldn't be too complex.

Finally I also added the pressing screw bridge-levers with the self made shoulder-Screws.
And it just looks good and additionally works as well.

Cheers Florian 

[Florian Eberhard]

Good Evening!

There is only one thing left to be made and that is the locking screw which will hold those levers in place when working.
Oh - i almost forgot to mention that I had made some retaining discs for the idler gears which hold them on place. (No pictures of that)
I bought handles but with an M8 internal thread (since I could not get anything just like I wanted it).
The material is drill rod and the threads were cut on the lathe (and had to be supported by a revolving centre)
After that, I applied some loctite onto the upper threads and screwed the handles on pretty tight.
And finally, the last puzzle-piece could be added to my version of the bending rolls! 

Well - the bending rolls are ready - and so was a piece of sheet metal to test it. 
Working pretty well - all that's left is some finishing like blackening of some of the parts and chamfering some edges.

But that will have to wait until the Cochran boiler is complete. And that is where the journey goes to right now!

Cheers Florian

[Ye-Ole Steam Dude]

Hi Florian , absolutely beautiful piece of equipment and wonderful machine work.

Thomas

[simplyloco]

Delightful job. I have an italian three way bruiser: the rollers are too big for anything except mid size boilers, and the shear needed reworking before I could use it! Well done.
John